Blanche Cleans Up: A Blanche White Mystery (Blanche White Mystery Series Book 3)

by Barbara Neely

  One of the big plastic bags brushed against her ankle. Something hard jabbed at her foot. She opened the bag wide enough to see the cardboard box inside. It was larger than a shoe box, but smaller than four shoe boxes. She took it out and set it on the floor. She didn’t expect to find the tape inside, but what about Donnie’s letters and picture? They weren’t in the box either. But she was interested in what she did find: miniature racing cars; birthday cards; four new ties still in their boxes; a pair of child-sized mittens of thick, probably imported, yellow-and-blue wool; ten Christmas cards and one graduation card of the kind you put money in; three get-well cards; six U.S. Savings Bonds; four pairs of new argyle socks; a tightly folded silk robe; an envelope with an invitation to Marc Brindle’s sixteenth birthday party with no name on the envelope. The gift cards had fallen into the bottom of the box, each with “To: Ray-Ray” and “From: the Brindles” written on them.

  Ray-Ray’s Brindle stash.

  She looked at the other things in the plastic bag: bunches of torn-up bills, old shoelaces, more old lottery tickets, and other junk. So, he’d put his Brindle stuff in the trash. He’d kept some of it for a long time. Why throw it out now?

  Was this how Ray-Ray’s big fight with Allister had ended, with Ray-Ray throwing out everything the family had ever given him? But the fight was at least a year ago; would Ray-Ray stay mad that long? And why keep all these gifts this way in the first place? The toy cars didn’t look as though they’d ever touched the floor. The gloves, ties, and socks had never been worn. The money gifts were missing; probably couldn’t afford to horde them. Ray-Ray had just kept it all, like prizes or souvenirs, things too special to be used because of who had given them to him. Ray-Ray had told Blanche that he’d always used the front door, just like one of the family. Is that how he’d thought of himself before the fight that made him want to hurt Allister Brindle? Certainly, growing up listening to Inez talk about the Brindles in a holy tone of voice had made some impression on him. And how powerful it must have felt to a poor little black boy to be able to come and go pretty much as he pleased in a place like that, to be taken to ball games by Allister, as though he were the other son. And then it was over. She closed the box and put it back in the bag. She rose and began opening bureau drawers, looking for the letters and picture Donnie wanted. The drawers were empty except for a smaller one. It was half full of little boxes and packs of matches from clubs and restaurants, mostly from a place called Le Club, but there were no letters or pictures. She hesitated in the doorway.

  Ray-Ray’s room was the only one that looked like it had been searched. The tape could be somewhere else in the house. With Miz Inez out of town, Ray-Ray didn’t have to worry about her finding the tape he’d tucked under her mattress—but it wasn’t there, or in the bureau drawers with their cotton snuggies and undershirts, bras and slips bleached nearly blue and neatly folded dark brown panty hose. Blanche went down the hall to the bathroom. The cabinet under the sink smelled of Listerine, Bengay, and Lubriderm lotion and held little else. Miz Inez’s kitchen cabinets were as organized as the ones at the Brindles’. If there was anything in them that shouldn’t have been, Blanche couldn’t find it. She even checked under the lining bag in the trash can. The built-in china closet and the old dark sideboard were full of dishes and cutlery, tablecloths and old magazines. The living room was equally tapeless. Disappointed but not surprised, she locked the front door and hurried to the bus stop. It was time to go to work.

  As soon as she got to the Brindle house, Blanche looked up Bea Richards’s phone number and called her. If she was a working woman, which she likely was, she’d be up by now. Blanche only planned to talk long enough to convince Bea to meet her and tell what she knew about Samuelson. But there was no answer.

  “This my half day, you know,” Carrie reminded Blanche.

  The doorbell rang before Blanche could ask Carrie how she intended to spend it. Carrie and Blanche gave each other who-could-that-be-at-this-hour looks. The Brindles had only just finished breakfast.

  “So?” Blanche asked when Carrie came back from answering the door. “And don’t start that Massa’s business ain’t none a my business bull hockey.”

  “Weren’t gonna say that noway,” Carrie whispered. “Things is gettin’ wilder and wilder around here. I just showed a private investigator into the library to see the mister and missus—least that’s what his card said.”

  “Yeah, he was here the other day.”

  “Ain’t nobody told me nothin’ about it.”

  Carrie was right. If Blanche wanted Carrie to tell all, she needed to give up some information herself. So she told Carrie about Cleason’s first visit with Felicia. “Maybe he’s got something to report,” she added, and went to find out.

  First, she fussed with the flowers on the sideboard in the dining room, then slipped down the hall to stand just to the side of the open library door.

  “Allister, be reasonable. He’s our son!” Felicia said.

  Allister didn’t bother to respond.

  “Mr. Brindle,” Cleason said in his big voice, “Mrs. Brindle told me your son had a friend who recently died. Some people become very disoriented, some even become self-destructive when—”

  “My son is none of your goddamned business! You’re not going to create havoc in my campaign to serve whatever twisted animosity she…Marc is not missing, and my wife damned well knows it! And if a word of this gets out, I’ll sue you until you bleed! Ted! Get him the hell out of here!”

  Blanche hurried back to the kitchen. Full-scale war broke out once Sadowski showed Cleason to the door. Blanche had only to open the kitchen door to hear Allister shouting at Felicia.

  “This is all your fault, all your fault! You and that limp-wristed son of yours, dragging his perverted habits into my home!”

  “Your home? Your home? That’s a laugh. If I didn’t—”

  “Stop right there, Felicia. I’m not going to listen to your—”

  “Fuck you, Allister.”

  A door slammed. Felicia laughed.

  Sadowski cleared his throat. “Mrs. Brindle, it’s important to the campaign that I know anything that might—”

  “Get out of my sight, you toady. And stay away from my breakfast table. I’m tired of seeing your ass-kissing face before I’ve had my morning coffee.”

  Damn! Felicia was taking no prisoners today. Things could be different around here when Inez got back.

  “Missus sittin’ in her room looking evil as sin,” Carrie said when she came down from making the beds. “I know that woman needs extra prayers.”

  And it was only ten-thirty. Blanche looked at the house schedule. Allister would be gone for the rest of the day. Felicia was having friends in for lunch. She and Allister were out for dinner again. Blanche hoped their fight wouldn’t change their dinner plans.

  “You’re gonna need lots of strength in them hands today, honey,” Blanche said when Mick arrived. “They just had a fight.”

  “Another wasted massage,” Mick said when she came downstairs. “Felicia’s so pissed, her back and neck muscles were tighter than a virgin’s snatch.”

  Blanche wondered aloud if Felicia would be calm by the time her guests arrived for lunch.

  “Don’t worry,” Mick told her. “These girls are champions at fronting. They all pretend to be happy, fulfilled wives with wonderful husbands who don’t ignore them, sleep around, kick their asses, or pat the paper boy’s butt. I know more about all of them than they’d ever tell each other.”

  Blanche was curious as to what Mick knew about her employers, but not as curious as she was about Ray-Ray. “Forget them,” she said. “What I want to know is why you didn’t tell me Ray-Ray was gay.”

  Without moving, Mick seemed to pull back, putting more space between Blanche and herself. “If Ray-Ray was straight, would you expect me to say so?”

  Blanche had on
e of those moments when she felt like she’d been walking around with a paper bag over her head and someone just yanked it off.

  Mick flung herself into a chair and looked up at her. “It’s like, the minute you say you’re gay, or somebody’s gay, it’s like all the other parts of who we are don’t count. So I decided to stop saying people were gay when I talk about them.” Mick lowered her head, but not before Blanche saw the sadness in her eyes.

  Blanche thought of herself as being not simply open-minded but a cheerleader for people who were different from what the rule-setters said was the way to live, behave, or feel. But looking down at Mick’s bowed head, she realized that cheering from the sidelines didn’t mean you knew how the game was played. She’d figured black lesbians had a sisterhood strong enough to carry them through all the nastiness the straight world dished out to them. But why should all black lesbians be able to do what so many straight black women couldn’t do, no matter how hard they tried?

  “I see your point, but I just don’t know if not saying who’s gay or straight helps or just confuses things. Maybe we ought to go the other way and always say what everybody’s sex thing is instead of acting like everybody’s straight until told otherwise.”

  “Yeah, maybe people’d get tired of hearing it after a while and figure out that it ain’t all that important,” Mick said.

  “Maybe,” Blanche told her. “All I do know is that it’s a mess out here, girl, no matter who you love.”

  “Maybe the people who stay in the closet have got it right.”

  “You think that’s why Ray-Ray wasn’t out to his mom?” Blanche asked her.

  “Well, he was and he wasn’t,” Mick told her. “He was more like behind the curtain than in the closet. I mean, I don’t think he ever lied to Miz Inez, but he probably never said, ‘Mom, I’m gay.’ But the only way Miz Inez missed it was because she wanted to, like lots of our families.”

  “What about your family?

  “My family?” Mick chuckled, and shook her head. “When I came out, my dad didn’t talk to me for almost two years. Now he speaks. But that’s all.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She’s okay as long as I don’t talk about it.”

  Mick didn’t have to say how she felt about that. Her tone was bitter as week-old coffee.

  “You got sisters and brothers?”

  “One of each. My sister tries to be cool, but she hasn’t asked me to baby-sit for her two girls since I came out. My brother completely wigged out about it. You should have heard some of the shit he said to me! Every time I think about it, I wish I’d decked him.”

  Men, Blanche thought, still trying to control that vagina, even when it was officially off-limits. Not that Mick’s mother and sister seemed to have much more sense than their menfolk.

  “You got anybody?” Blanche asked her.

  Mick sat up straighter. The lines in her forehead disappeared. “Been together two years.” She reached in her back pocket and pulled out a worn brown leather wallet. She took out a picture and handed it to Blanche.

  Blanche looked at the short plump woman standing next to Mick. She had long straight hair nearly to her waist, cheekbones as sharp as Blanche’s own, and a slight slant to her eyes.

  “Pilar,” Mick said in a whispery voice full of pride and something that sounded to Blanche like pure lust, although she admitted that might be due to her own giant-sized case of horniness.

  “She’s beautiful,” Blanche said. Years ago, she’d have had an attitude because Mick’s lover wasn’t black, but the older she got, the more certain she became that someone you loved who loved you back was what was important.

  “She teaches in the Women’s Studies Department at Brandeis,” Mick said.

  “You’re lucky.” Blanche’s growing sense of aloneness roughened her voice.

  Mick nodded. “Yeah, I know. Before Pilar I used to get so lonely sometimes…not for sex so much, but for somebody to talk to. Somebody who cared about me. But you know what? It doesn’t make up for the other parts. I mean, having Pilar is great. She’s just so amazing! And we…but sometimes, I just miss my mom and dad so much. You know, the way it used to be when they were in my corner, no matter what. Or at least I thought they were.”

  ’Cause that’s what they told you, Blanche thought. That’s how people set their children up: telling you they’ll always love you no matter what, but forgetting to add that they might decide to love you from a distance and without speaking to you if you grew up to love someone just like you. She wondered what Mick’s parents had done with all their growing-up memories of her once they’d decided she was no longer daughter quality. Mick ought to be able to take them back—every tender moment, every single kiss good night.

  “They’d do better by you if they could,” Blanche said.

  Mick stared at Blanche for a few seconds. “You’re right. I never thought of it that way. I keep thinking, like, they’re my parents, they have to know what’s right, do what’s right. But they’re also just people, people who just can’t…Thanks, Blanche. I’m glad we talked.”

  Blanche grinned. “Now tell me about Ray-Ray,”

  Carrie came down the back stairs and gathered her hat and coat. “I’ll be going now. See ya.” She didn’t look at either of them. Well, at least she didn’t just say good-bye to me by name and act like Mick’s invisible, Blanche thought. But there was still a lot of work to be done on our Carrie. She turned back to Mick.

  “So, do you know Donnie?” Blanche asked.

  “Donnie? I don’t think so. What’s his last name?”

  Blanche told her. “He said he’d been after Ray-Ray for years. He’s in a bad way about Ray-Ray’s death.”

  “What’s his name again?”

  Blanche told her.

  Mick shook her head. “He’s not from the old neighborhood. Anyway, the only real lover I ever knew Ray-Ray to have was Marc. All the rest were strictly for fun and games.”

  “You mean Marc Brindle, right?”

  “Yeah. Remember? I told you Marc and Ray-Ray used to be tight.”

  “Yeah, I finally figured him and Ray-Ray were lovers, even though you never said they were a couple or even that Ray-Ray was…” Blanche scolded, then remembered Mick’s thing about not saying people were gay and veered off. “When did they break up?” she asked.

  “Well, they had this puppy thing going when they were kids. Then Marc went away to college, and I think he went to Europe, too. Anyway, like a lot of guys back then, Ray-Ray was screwing everything that moved. He was lucky he didn’t get AIDS,” Mick said.

  “So that was it?” Blanche prompted her.

  Mick pushed up her glasses. “I don’t remember exactly when they hooked up the second time. Over a year ago, at least. But it didn’t work. It was like they were trying to get back what they had when they were kids.”

  Blanche was too impatient for Mick to get to the parts she was interested in. “Is that what Ray-Ray and Allister fought about? Is that why Ray-Ray don’t work here anymore?”

  Mick nodded. “Ray-Ray never would say exactly what happened, except that it was about Marc. Ray-Ray really changed after that. A bunch of us hang out together, go to clubs, and you know, hang out. Ray-Ray was a regular, but he stopped showing up. At first I thought it was because of breaking up with Marc. But I really think the fight with Allister hurt him more.”

  Blanche thought about Ray-Ray’s box of Brindle gifts in the trash in his room and knew Mick was right. And she was right, too: Ray-Ray’s fight with Allister was the reason why he stole the tape, the reason why Ray-Ray wanted to ruin Allister.

  “It’s a shame Ray-Ray’s funeral’s gonna be out of town, with none of his friends there,” Blanche said, wondering if there was someone beside Donnie close enough to Ray-Ray to keep Allister’s tape for him.

  Mick pushed up her glasses. “
I don’t think he had what you’d call really close friends except for Marc.”

  Blanche wasn’t surprised. She knew how tiring and irritating Rary-Ray’s overconfidence could be. She was surprised that he hadn’t shown Donnie off to his old crowd—especially since cutie-pie Donnie had wooed him.

  “No, that’s not true,” Mick amended. “He did have one other close friend, but she just died, too. Miz Barker, who had the store over on Humboldt. You know her?”

  Blanche nodded.

  “They were tight. Her and Ray-Ray. Since we were little kids. He used to tell her all his business—and ours, too, I bet. I think she used to let him stay with her sometimes when him and Miz Inez were buggin’. Now they’re both dead.”

  And both of them murdered. Both of them—the one who’d stolen the tape and the one to whom Mick said he told all of his business. Something heavy hit the bottom of Blanche’s stomach. “You going to Miz Barker’s funeral?” she asked to distract herself.

  “You want to go together?” Mick said. “I’ll pick you up.” She looked at her watch. “Damn! Late again!” she said, and was out the door.

  Blanche called Gourmanderie Groceries for the pears, greens, and salmon steaks Felicia had requested for lunch. The delivery boy was at the door by the time she’d gotten her pans and condiments together. She trimmed and washed the watercress and endive. She spun the greens dry, wrapped them in a dish towel, and let herself fall into a kind of trance from which her body did the cooking while her mind was busy elsewhere.

  She returned to the path of thoughts that had begun last night as she was falling off to sleep and had lengthened during her conversation with Mick: If Ray-Ray was in the habit of telling Miz Barker all his business, then Miz Barker had had good reason to think Ray-Ray’s death was related to something he’d stolen: He’d told her what he’d done. Blanche peeled and began mincing a small clove of garlic. She stopped, knife raised two inches from the cutting board, instantly and completely sure not only that Ray-Ray had told Miz Barker about the tape but that he’d given it to her to keep for him. Miz Barker must have made up that business about overhearing Ray-Ray on the phone so she didn’t have to admit what she knew. Blanche finished mincing the garlic. She lay the knife down and looked out the window into the backyard, giving herself a few more moments free from the knowledge that lay at the end of this trail of thought. She tried to concentrate on the squawk of a nearby blue jay, but her thoughts were like crying children refusing to be ignored. She swept the garlic into a bowl, added low-fat yogurt curd, and blended in some sour cream. Her legs felt like twigs too weak to hold her. She leaned against the counter as the thought that Miz Barker had most likely died because of Brindle’s tape seeped through her like poison.